Lectio Divina on Genesis 32:22–32

With Andrea Lingle

Lectio Divina is a scriptural prayer practice that asks the reader to allow repetitive reading to help them bypass the analytical part of their brain. When our minds quiet into the practice of Lectio Divina, we are given space to experience the grace of scripture in a way that is beyond consciousness, beyond effort, beyond knowledge. This is a place of release and contemplation. A place beyond control. It can be a dark place, a chaotic place, a restful place, but it cannot be a place of knowledge and control. 

St. John of the Cross says of contemplation:

“Contemplation is nothing else but a secret, peaceful, and loving infusion of God, which, if admitted, will set the soul on fire with the spirit of love.” 
― St. John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul, translator, Mirabai Starr

We are asked to submit to contemplation knowing that love and fire can sometimes consume. So, dear ones, will you wrestle with contemplation on this Good Friday? 

Lectio Divina

Read the following passage through. Pause for a few minutes after reading to allow words, phrases, or ideas to rise to your consciousness. Greet these words, phrases, or ideas. Repeat the process two or more times allowing your mind to quiet into the "secret, peaceful, and loving" place of contemplation.

Genesis 32:22-32

The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, "Let me go, for the day is breaking." But Jacob said, "I will not let you go, unless you bless me." So he said to him, "What is your name?" And he said, "Jacob." Then the man said, "You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed." Then Jacob asked him, "Please tell me your name." But he said, "Why is it that you ask my name?" And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, "For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved." The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip. Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the thigh muscle that is on the hip socket, because he struck Jacob on the hip socket at the thigh muscle.